US Supreme Court seeks government’s views on lawsuit against oil companies
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The US Supreme Court requested President Joe Biden’s administration provide its perspective on Sunoco and other oil companies’ attempt to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Honolulu. The lawsuit accuses them of deceiving the public for decades about the dangers of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
The US Solicitor General was invited to file a brief outlining the administration’s views on whether the court should hear a challenge to the city’s lawsuit.
A group of major oil companies, including BHP, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Petroleum, Shell, and Sunoco, have requested the Supreme Court to review the case after Hawaii’s Supreme Court ruled in October that the lawsuit could proceed.
Read more: Exxon, Chevron CEOs demand clear rules on US clean energy subsidies
The lawsuit, filed in 2020 by the city and county of Honolulu along with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, alleges that the companies’ misleading statements about the impact of their fossil fuel products contributed to property and infrastructure damage caused by human-induced climate change.
Read more: US Lawmakers Probe Investigation into climate deception by Big Oil
Richard Wiles, president of the non-profit Centre for Climate Integrity, which supports climate accountability litigation, told The Guardian, “Big oil companies are fighting desperately to avoid trial in lawsuits like Honolulu’s, which would expose the evidence of the fossil fuel industry’s climate lies for the entire world to see.”
However, oil companies argue that greenhouse gas emissions should be addressed solely through federal policy.
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